History: Founded in 1982, Ghafari Associates is a leading full-service architecture, engineering and construction organization with a history of customer focus, quality work and technological innovation. Through its offices around the globe, Ghafari serves a diverse client base across a variety of markets. The firm was founded on innovation and is widely recognized as a pioneer in adopting the latest technologies in real project applications (http://www.ghafari.com/content.cfm/firm).

Additional Offices: As one of the largest engineering design services firms worldwide, and a leading U.S. federal government contractor, URS has an extensive network of offices across the U.S. and in more than 40 countries.

URS Corporation’s oldest predecessor company was founded in 1904. URS was established in 1951, and incorporated in 1957 as Broadview Research—a research group active in the area of physical and engineering sciences. In 1967, management developed a growth strategy focused on building a multidisciplinary professional services firm. In 1968, Broadview Research acquired United Research Incorporated of Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this period, the name Broadview Research was changed to United Research Services and later shortened to URS.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, URS continued to expand through internal growth and strategic acquisitions that enhanced (their) engineering, architectural and environmental practices. When Dames & Moore Group joined the Company in 1999, it further widened our geographic base, strengthened our program and construction management expertise, added to (their)FORTUNE 500 client base and expanded (their) presence in the mass transit market. The 2007 acquisition of Washington Group International enhanced URS’ ability to provide integrated engineering and construction services throughout the project life cycle—from planning, design and engineering through construction to operations and maintenance, and decommissioning and closure.

Most recently, in 2010, URS acquired the Scott Wilson Group—a global integrated design and engineering consultancy based in the United Kingdom. The acquisition significantly expanded our resources and capabilities in the United Kingdom and Ireland in critical infrastructure markets. It also expanded our global footprint in continental Europe, China and India.

Today, URS has more than 47,000 employees in a network of offices in more than 40 countries. The company’s clients include the U.S. federal government, national governments of other countries, state and local government agencies in the United States and internationally, and FORTUNE 500 companies and other multinational corporations (http://www.urscorp.com/About_URS/index.php?s=2) .

Whitman, Requardt and Associates was founded in 1915 by Ezra B. Whitman, William J. Norton, and Paul B. Bird as Norton, Bird and Whitman. Major Whitman, local World War I war hero and founder of The Engineer’s Club, pioneered the design of the first rapid sand filtration plant to serve a major city while working as Baltimore Water Engineer.

Mr. Whitman acquired a reputation for innovation as one of the designers of Baltimore’s Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant – the first central plant for a large city in the United States. The small firm quickly became known for its expertise in water and wastewater projects.

Whitman, Requardt and Smith, renamed after the company reorganization in 1925, accepted its first major project – a water tunnel, 20 miles of pipeline, and a water filtration plant rated at 32 million gallons a day (MGD) for the City of Albany, New York. Benjamin Smith, a partner who worked for the company since 1916, opened an Albany office to oversee the project.

To aid the World War II war effort, the firm designed and constructed arsenals in Edgewood, Maryland; Huntsville and Red Stone, Alabama; and Rocky Mountain, Colorado. Benjamin Smith separated from the partnership in 1943 and maintained ownership of the Albany practice. Major Whitman and Mr. Requardt renamed the firm Whitman, Requardt and Associates (WR&A) and acquired six new partners. At the height of the war, WR&A staffed 700 employees.

In the 1960’s, WR&A diversified its practice by offering highway transportation and building design services. The firm ventured into marine engineering during the 1970’s and designed two of the largest graving docks in the world for Bethlehem Shipbuilding and Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.

These high-profile projects elevated WR&A to a national leader in Drydock Certification for the U.S. Navy and design of ports, piers, bulkhead, and shipbuilding facilities.

With an increasing need for mass transit facilities, WR&A expanded its transportation services and participated in the planning and design of subways, light rail lines and commuter rail lines and their related stations, bus and rail maintenance facilities and aerial structures for both the Maryland Transit Administration and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Today, WR&A maintains its relationship with both agencies as well as the Delaware Transit Corporation (DART).

Recognizing the importance of land planning as the population increased and moved from the city to the suburbs, the firm offered residential and commercial land development engineering services. Projects included the White Marsh Regional Mall in Maryland and the new towns of Joppatowne, Columbia, and St. Charles.

Services included complete utility infrastructure, roads and lot layout. In the 1980’s, WR&A expanded the staff to include architects, mechanical and electrical engineers, and interior designers to adapt to the needs of the clients and the changes in society, development, and technology.

Today, the firm provides complete architectural and engineering services to industry as well as academic and research institutions in both the public and private sectors. Projects range from the planning and design of communication satellite assembly and test facilities, 400,000-SF federal government office buildings, aircraft maintenance hangars, flight simulator buildings, university dormitories, national aquarium, military training facilities, and schools (http://www.wrallp.com/history/tabid/154/default.aspx).

Firm History
Zaha Hadid began her architectural career working as a partner at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture with Elia Zenghelis and her former professor Rem Koolhaas. After leaving the firm, she began teaching at the Architectural Association in London where she developed her own unique brand of neo-modernist architecture. It wasn’t until 1980 that Zaha Hadid created her own firm and thus, Zaha Hadid Architects was born. In 1993, the firm completed its first project, the Vitra Fire Station, which showcased Hadid and partner Patrik Schumacher’s talent and style as well as attracted international attention. The firm had difficulties attracting high profile commissions for a period of time due to Hadid’s very modern approach. Some critics claimed that her buildings were impossible to produce. Ironically, it was the traditionally conservative, Midwestern US that gave Hadid’s firm its big break. The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati not only showcased the firm’s unique style but also proved that the firm’s buildings were in fact possible to erect. Other projects followed including the Olympic Aquatic Center in London England, the MAXXI Contemporary Arts Centre in Rome, and the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg. Additionally, the firm acquired even more attention when, in 2004, Hadid became the first female Laureate to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Today, Hadid’s firm is comprised of three hundred staff members in fifty-five countries and has presided over nine hundred and fifty projects in forty-four nations. Zaha Hadid Architects has become an innovative, world renowned, cutting edge firm that continues to inspire and impress people around the world.

Zaha Hadid
Born in 1950’s Baghdad, to a bourgeois intellectual family, Zaha Hadid enrolled at the American University in Beirut, where she received a degree in mathematics, after which she attended Architectural Association in London. Upon graduation, she was offered a position as a partner under her former professor Rem Koolhaas which she took and later left in order to teach and further develop her artistic ability. Having a reputation of being single-minded and uncompromising, some of her early works were never built because her ideas were seen as too impractical or too radical. At the opening of her first large scale project, her staff wore T-shirts that read “Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?” In 2004, she became the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Today, Hadid’s architecture continues to attract international attention and admiration. She currently resides in London, England where she also designs furniture and jewelry.

Patrik Schumacher
Patrik Schumacher joined Zaha Hadid Architects in 1988 and is currently a partner as well as the co-founding director at the Architectural Association Design Lab. After studying architecture in Bonn, London, Schumacher received his diploma in 1990 and his PHD from the Institute for Cultural Science in 1999.